“Next month [17 September 2025], dozens of musicians and artists will join forces in London to send ‘a message of love and solidarity to the people of Palestine’. Led by Brian Eno, the Together for Palestine concert at OVO Wembley Arena aims to raise millions of pounds to help charity Choose Love and its partner organisations in Gaza to provide desperately needed food, medical supplies and other support.”
Choose Love, formerly Help Refugees, is a UK based NGO that was set up in 2015 by a group of celebrities with the aim to offer humanitarian aid to refugees. The charity has close links to Israel, with the supply manager operating from Tel Aviv in 2015 and its close relationship with organisation Prism the Gift Fund. Reportedly, as of 2024 the NGO has cut ties with Prism, though the founder Anna Josse took the role of UK full-time director of US charity New Israel Fund. Josse ran the British arm of the New Israel Fund for six years. Previously, she worked in the high-tech industry and set up the Yazam EU office as Director of Investor Relations. Choose Love initially operated as a "collective fund" managed by Prism the Gift Fund, and since May 2024 it went independent.
Soft power is described as a ‘non-coercive’ tool to shape attitudes and preferences, using the tactic of co-opting as opposed to coercion. A term coined by American Political scientist Joseph Nye, and further developed in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. For Nye, power is the ability to influence the behaviour of others to get the outcomes you want. This can be done in either a hard way or a soft way. Hard power looks like military force and payment. Whereas soft power allows “one [to] attract and co-opt them to want what one wants.”
"A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries – admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness – want to follow it. In this sense, it is also important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics, and not only to force them to change by threatening military force or economic sanctions. This soft power – getting others to want the outcomes that you want – co-opts people rather than coerces them." (Nye, 2004)
Key channels include political values (democracy and rights governance models), foreign policy image (perceived legitimacy and moral standing) and culture (arts, media and entertainment).
A useful tool in the arsenal of a state, or any actor in international politics, which can be celebrities, artists, NGOs etc, and a weapon that has been used throughout history. This can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks. The spread of Greek theatre, philosophy, and architecture across the Mediterranean created admiration that made Greek influence desirable — even for conquered peoples. Furthermore, for Imperial China The Silk Road was not just about trade in goods; Chinese porcelain, calligraphy, and Confucian ideals (a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of Confucius (551–479 BCE) made the empire culturally magnetic. Victorian literature, industrial exhibitions, and cricket became carriers of British prestige and values across the empire. Bolshoi Ballet tours, Soviet cinema, and space achievements were used to promote the socialist project in the USSR; Jazz diplomacy, Hollywood films, and Coca-Cola symbolised American freedom and modernity during the Cold War. Anime, manga, and consumer electronics reframed Japan’s image from militarist aggressor to cultural innovator. And more recently, Qatar hosting the FIFA World Cup and funding Al Jazeera acts as part of a strategy to project modernity and global relevance, moving away from it’s old presentation on the world stage as a remote, small Gulf Sheikhdom known for little more than pearls, oil and sand.
Every empire needs a marketing rollout, every decent leader know this. And if you want people to follow, you’ve got to make it sexy.
As the ‘second face of power’, I’m interested to know who the orchestrators are. Not of those of military dictatorship or espionage, but artists. Singers, dancers, actors, influencers. The subtle diplomats whose work travels globally, that often embodies the values a country wants to project. Though, some artists resist being co-opted, creating work that undermines state narratives. Even so, their international recognition can still affect national image. Radical or not, the state will still try to co-opt your work and add it to their portfolio. *hides face* I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that over two years into this genocide, the UK are now hosting a modern rendition of Live Aid next to one of the biggest stages in the world. Before it was for the poor hungry African kids, now its for the poor hungry Palestinian kids. *reveals face* Who said that?
Artists, like trees, depend on their environment as a life source. And in the sense that I see artists as dictators of culture, I see culture as a perpetual feedback loop. Artists, influenced by culture, influence culture, that influences culture, and so on.
We totally underestimate their power to impact narratives and consensus domestically and internationally. And, as we’ve explored together, empires depend on the sexy, glossy roll-out to endorse the hard power politics of their nations. Because hard power alone? No, too dictator-y. Let’s add branding and a slogan and they’ll be none the wiser. Though, soft power alone? I don’t think that’s ever worked for anyone. And soft power alone struggles as a liberatory tactic because it depends on attraction and persuasion which, on their own, rarely dismantle entrenched systems of domination. In the face of genocide I’m unsure how this will work either. They’re speaking the language of hard and soft: weapons, bombs, state-of-the-art AI, biological warfare through starvation and narcotics-laced food, complemented with a 77 year marketing roll out with the endorsement of the United States. Soft power alone holds no strength.
I’m not here to pose solutions, just to critically analyse the current ones presented to us.
References:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/12/help-refugees-calais-accidental-activists
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/jamie-xx-damon-albarn-greentea-peng-and-many-more-will-perform-at-together-for-palestine-at-wembley-arena-how-to-get-tickets-080825
https://corporatewatch.org/choose-love-why-is-the-charity-funder-quitting-calais-this-christmas/
https://prismthegiftfund.co.uk/about/#meet-the-team
https://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid-east/drugs-found-hidden-in-flour-bags-distributed-by-us-backed-aid-group